He moved up behind her and put his mouth to her ear. “It’s two people who want some privacy.”
She turned to face him and whispered, “I need to make sure they’re our guests and not someone else.”
“I’m coming with you,” he mouthed.
She rolled her eyes, but there was a grin on her lips. They walked quietly through the woods, creeping closer to the couple. Rordan saw the firelight before he saw the pair. As soon as he did, his attention shifted to Fianna.
The moment she saw Dorcha and one of the male guards, her eyes widened in disbelief. However, it was the fury that surprised him. She opened her mouth to say something, but Rordan put his hand on her and jumped them to his cottage.
“Bastard!” she screamed.
Rordan released her and took a step back. “Because he was with another male?”
Fianna seemed too upset to speak. She paced back and forth, anger simmering from every pore. She needed to release that pent-up rage before she exploded, and Rordan knew just how to get her to do it.
He blocked her path. “Hit me.”
“Get out of my way,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Hit me,” he told her again.
“I’m not going to hit you.”
He swung at her, and just as he expected, she blocked him while delivering a blow to his midsection that had him staggering back. Rordan barely had time to raise his hands before she rushed him. They toppled the table and fell to the floor. He allowed her to do what she needed to do to get her anger out. When their tussle moved them through the door, and they rolled outside, he didn’t stop her. He’d seen her train, had sparred with her, but sheer indignation ruled her now.
She straddled his hips, her fist aimed at his face, when she suddenly stopped, all the fight leaving her. Her face crumpled as she covered it with her hands. Rordan sat up and wrapped his arms around her as she cried.
Her arms wound around his neck, and she held him tightly. He imagined this was decades—if not centuries—of pent-up anger, resentment, and hurt that had finally broken free of their dam. Her body shook with her tears, gut-wrenching, soul-deep sobs that made him want to hunt down those who had wounded her and let them feel his fury.
They sat there for hours, long after her tears had dried. She was in his arms, and he had no desire to change that. Rordan couldn’t remember the last time anything had felt so good, so…right.
“I was the bad seed,” Fianna said, breaking the silence. “Just like my mother. My father told me demons had taken her. And me.”
Rordan frowned at the term demons but let her speak.
“Da preached how clean and moral he and Dorcha were. How…proper. He told me that it was only because I was his blood that he would lower himself to help someone like me.” She snorted. “I fought him at first. Told him there was nothing wrong with me. But if you’re told often enough that you’re dirty, that you’re wrong, that your very existence is a blight, you begin to believe it. All those centuries, I believed him. Every word he spoke. Why would a father lie to their child? Even when he locked me in a small room, telling me it was the only way to drive out the demons, I trusted that he only had my best interests at heart.”
Rordan tightened his arms around her while doing his best to hold in his anger, but he was losing the battle. And he feared he hadn’t heard the worst of it yet.
“Even when I proved that the demons didn’t rule me anymore, I wasn’t trusted with anything. Da and Dorcha planned everything, decided every detail. And all the while, I was happy to be a part of it, glad that they had given me a second chance.”
The indignation in her voice fanned the flames of Rordan’s wrath.
“I settled into my role quite easily. I did everything that was asked of me without question. All because I wanted so desperately to please my father and remain a part of the family. I’m not sure how he did it, but he made it so I felt that I would crumble to nothing without them. That I would, quite literally, die. How does that happen to someone? How do they not realize what’s going on?”
Rordan closed his eyes, holding onto her for himself as much as Fianna.
She drew in a ragged breath and sniffed. “Everything I’ve based my life on has been shattered. Yet, I see now that it was just an illusion. A fantasy my father created, and Dorcha went along with. To think that I believed Dorcha and I had gotten past our childhood differences. My brother has shown his true self these past few days, proving that even his civility has been a deception to keep me in line, so I don’t embarrass the family.”
Rordan’s eyes opened when she sat up and loosened her arms. There were tear streaks down her face. Her perfect ponytail had come loose, inky strands falling around her shoulders. She’d had the rug pulled out from under her, and she had wobbled a bit, but there was no doubt about the strength within her. It shone in her silver eyes, in the set of her shoulders.
“You asked what had happened in my past to indebt me to my family.”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to tell me.”
She put a finger over his lips and smiled briefly. “I want to.”
But she didn’t continue. Her gaze lowered to his mouth as she softly ran the tip of a finger along his bottom lip. Heat seared Rordan, shooting straight to his cock. The breeze coming from the ocean cooled his skin and ruffled her hair. He loosened his hold long enough to tuck a strand behind her ear.
“My mother left when I was very young. I have no memory of her, and we weren’t allowed to speak of her. If she came up, Da flew into a rage. He didn’t like me to have friends or to leave the house. He never shackled Dorcha as he did me. And when I came of age, I left. I told him I didn’t need him or his rules.” Fianna smiled softly before she swallowed. “I went to Dublin with some friends, and I began a life there. I lived like any other Fae. I toyed with one human once, but I found it distasteful, so I stayed away from them.”
Rordan wiped away a fresh tear that rolled down her cheek, his heart breaking for her.
“The demons my father claimed I had, the same ones that had taken my mother, were those that liked sex.”
He jerked back, confused. “We’re Fae. We’re sexual creatures.”
“I know,” she replied with a soft smile. “And yet, somehow, he brainwashed me into thinking it was something horrible. My father preached often and loud about how perfect he and Dorcha were. How they never tainted themselves with carrying out such acts.”
“I hate to call him a liar, but how does he think you and your brother got here?”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “When I saw Dorcha tonight, I lost it. Not because he was with a male but because he was having sex. Something my father claimed he wouldn’t degrade himself to do. Dorcha was the standard, and I had to live up to that.”
“You do understand that they’re having sex. They’ve always had it.”
“That realization slammed into me tonight.” Her voice softened into a whisper as she gazed at him with longing. “There’s nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with sharing my body with someone. Especially someone that has filled my thoughts and dreams since I laid my eyes upon him.”
Rordan slid his hands up her back as he moved his head closer. There was still time to pull away, still time to control his longing. He acknowledged the moment and let it go because there was no way he could walk away from Fianna.